Adjustment Layers

Discover the power of using adjustment layers in Premiere Pro. Apply an effect or opacity adjustment to a range of clips at once.

Adjustment Layers

In Adobe® Premiere® Pro, you can use an adjustment layer to apply the same effect to multiple clips on the Timeline. Effects applied to an adjustment layer affect all layers below it in the layer stacking order.

You can use combinations of effects on a single adjustment layer. You can also use multiple adjustment layers to control more effects.

Adjustment layers in Premiere Pro behave similarly to the adjustments layers in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects.

Create an adjustment layer

Select File > New > Adjustment Layer.

In the Video Settings dialog box, modify settings for the adjustment layer, if necessary, and then click OK.

Drag (or Overwrite) the adjustment layer from the Project panel on to a video track above the clips you want to affect in the Timeline.

Click anywhere in the body of the adjustment layer to select it.

With the adjustment layer selected, enter the name of the effect that you want to apply in the Rapid Find box of the Effects panel.

Double-click the effect to add it to the adjustment layer. You can add multiple effects to the adjustment layer.

Press Shift+5 to open the Effect Controls panel. Modify the parameters of the effect as needed.

When you play the sequence, note that all the clips on the underlying tracks are affected by changes you made to the adjustment layer.

Resize an adjustment layer to highlight an area

You can add an effect to an adjustment layer, like a tint or color correction effect, and then resize it. The technique allows you to highlight an area of the screen.

Double-click the adjustment layer in the Timeline display area.

Drag the anchor point in the center of the screen to reposition the adjustment layer, and then drag the edge of the clip to scale it down.

Blend modes and adjustment layers

Using an adjustment layer, you can apply the same blend mode and opacity adjustment to a range of clips. Do this in Premiere Pro by changing the blend mode under Opacity in the Effect Controls tab of the adjustment layer.

This technique is equivalent to duplicating a clip in a video track over an existing clip, and then changing its blend mode.

Transform effect and adjustment layers

You can add a transform effect to an adjustment layer, like scale or rotate, and then animate it over a span of clips (or still images). This technique allows you to achieve motion effects formerly done by nesting clips.

When playing back the sequence, the clip now has a transform effect that animates over the span of two or more clips.